


Games of Trust

by OtherCat



Category: Andromeda
Genre: Angst, Humor, Kink, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-06
Updated: 2009-06-05
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:55:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyr and Harper play games, but the games are more serious than you'd think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Feral

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 10-05-2003 in my lj. One of three mostly interelated shorts

Tyr is not surprised that Harper is a light sleeper. He'd be more surprised if he wasn't. Amusing, sometimes, to shift in just the wrong way, or to lightly exhale, blowing air across Harper's face, or just below the ear. See the sleepy eyes snap open, and glare blue lasers at him, followed by a sleepy, irritated injunction to not do it for all of fifteen minutes, and doing it all over again from the beginning, taking care to remain out of range for the inevitable retaliation.

What does surprise him, is that sometimes, Harper isn't a light sleeper. Sometimes, he'll sink into a sleep so deep that it seems that nothing will wake him up. These deep sleeps are often the result of the engineer's habit of pushing himself to exhaustion, or prolonged periods of wakefulness. Less often, they are the result of overindulgence in alchohol or other depressants. Tickling, prodding, threatening to pour icewater on him, will not awaken him, the emphasis being on the word awaken because while it's impossible to awaken him, getting a reaction out of him is another matter entirely.

Specifically, two reactions.

The first reaction was to strike out at whatever it was that had disturbed him. Strike out, and apparently try to murder it. This was not as amusing as one might think. Harper was wiry and strong. Attempting to hold him still would only make things worse. Much worse. More than once Tyr has been driven from the bed by hard fists and feet kicking and flailing with bruising force. Harper deaf to reason, still sleeping face twisted into something feral and savage.

Embarrassing, the first time this occured. The blows struck had left bruises that caused Tyr to limp and impeded movement for several days. Dylan was easily put off with tales of sparring, and a very faint smirk. After the second time however, Beka's eyes had narrowed angrily. Later, she'd cornered him, demanded explanations, cut his evasions to shreds. Told him more than he was comfortable hearing, and what he already knew, about Harper's life before he'd escaped Earth. Furious, low voiced threats and defenses had been exchanged, and worse, unforgivable things might have been said, if Harper hadn't appeared, as if teleported (or perhaps summoned by the ship's AI) and by making light of the situation and the cause of the argument, defused it.

The second reaction was far more preferable, and the one he preferred to invoke, if at all possible.

Harper lay in an almost defensive curl on Tyr's bed, head tucked down, arms curled tight to his chest, body radiating tension, though he was very deeply asleep, his breaths slow and even. The Andromeda had gone to the rescue of a colony being attacked by raiders, a raid that turned out to be part of a larger trap intended to target the ship. Harper had spent the past forty-eight hours hunting down worms in the ship's AI, interspersed by frantic physical repairs of the ship itself. In that time, he'd had about three hours of sleep. Once the battle was over, Harper had simply collapsed where he'd been standing on the bridge.

No one had said a word as Tyr scooped Harper up off the deck and carried him to his bedroom. Harper was barely awake enough to allow him to do little more than remove his shoes, and loosen his clothes. Mumbled protests of "m'fine" and "g'way" were ignored. Once these tasks were completed, Tyr retreated to a nearby chair to watch as Harper immediately curled into a ball and slept.

Tyr waited. A half hour, a full hour, an hour and a half. Harper muttered and twitched in his sleep, words slurring from Common to some Earth-based patois. Names, some of them, fragments of phrases, words. Fear, something close to happiness, threat, anger, emotions slipping one into the other. Memories. Tyr kept a list of the names, in a place Harper wouldn't easily find.

Another hour and a half, and Harper's twitching and mutterings faded, though he hadn't yet relaxed out of his tight curl. Tyr rose quietly to his feet, but not too quietly. It was important at this stage to not set off any subconscious alarms. He stripped, and eased into the bed, fitting himself to the curves of Harper's body. Harper relaxed against him, muttering something about the "gangrene hills of Earth."

Tyr nuzzled the back of Harper's neck, and ran his hand down the engineer's side, skipping over the utility belt. Harper shifted a bit, moved closer, head turning blindly as if he were searching for something. Tyr reached lower, cupped a hand over the front of Harper's pants, rubbed. Tyr kissed warm skin, nuzzled just behind the ear. Harper arched his neck, and rolled his hips backward. Sleepy murmur.

Tyr kept up the slow, careful stroking and kissing, keeping a careful eye on Harper's sleepwalker movements. Not too fast, and not to slow, that was the key. Eventually, with a feral near-growl, Harper twisted around like an eel or a ferret, pounced. Tyr rolled onto his back letting the smaller man cover him.

Tyr removed the engineer's utility belt and pulled the pants down. Harper rubbed his entire body against Tyr's, kissed him and clung, the expression on his sleeping face feral, predatory. There was an intensity there that Harper almost never fully showed when he was awake. Only the briefest flickers, and only for a few moments, flickers that hinted at a greater ferocity hidden somewhere so deep that it could only emerge under stress, or if coaxed out like this.

Harper's mouth was everywhere, kissing and nipping, often in places that shouldn't have been arrousing, but were. Soft noises like growls or half formed words. Tyr teased and caressed the engineer twisting and writhing on top of him. Groaned as Harper's cock rubbed against his, as he met Harper's thrusts with his own. Harper came with growl, spurting over Tyr's belly, hips still moving in slow motion, the wiry strength in his arms slipping away into bonelessness, cheek pressed to Tyr's shifted himself into a more comfortable sleeping position, taking care not to disturb Harper further, and let the engineer's heartbeat lull him to sleep.


	2. Trussed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted 11-18-2002 in my LJ.

"I want you to bind me," Tyr murmured in Harper's ear.

Harper lifted his head from Tyr's shoulder and stared. "You want me to _what?_"

Tyr looked amused. "To bind me--the bunk frame seems strong enough." From his tone of voice, he might have been discussing oh, just about anything. A clam bake. What to have for breakfast. The recent story arc on _Isabel Medici: Santini Drift Investigator. _

"You want me to _tie you up_?!" Harper sat up, one foot on the deck.

Tyr lifted himself up onto one elbow, smirking. "Don't tell me you never thought of it," he said, in a low, suggestive voice. The voice that never failed to make Harper's brain melt. The voice that just now, was putting all sorts of lovely, hot...bad, very bad pictures into Harper's brain.

"Who wouldn't?" Harper said, trying to push the pictures out of his head. Tyr stretched out on the bunk, straining against his bonds. "Big, gorgeous guy, all tied up, and no where to go--"

Trying not to react as Harper played all his hot spots like a synthesizer. How every once in a while a little moan would escape, which would make Tyr that more determined not to make a sound. Which would make Harper that more determined to hear another...and trying not to think about it wasn't working. "But you're a alpha, shouldn't it be you, tying _me_ up?"

Tyr blinked lazily, like a cat. "Would you trust me to do that?"

Harper swallowed. "Trust you?" The first thing that popped into Harper's head was Dylan's little aphorism, "I trust Tyr to be Tyr," which maybe definitely didn't work here, because asking to be tied up wasn't on Harper's mental list of "Things Tyr is Likely to Want." The idea of _being_ tied up, by Tyr--wasn't as frightening on first glance as he would have thought. "Maybe. If I could get loose quickly."

Tyr nodded. "Perhaps we could try that another time," The Nietszchean rolled onto his back and stretched out on the bed. Harper moved off the bed entirely, and swallowed. Tyr's arms were above his head, crossed at the wrists, his legs slightly spread. The faint smirk belied the apparently submissive pose. "Bind me," Tyr commanded in a tone that was as far from "submissive" as it was possible to get.

Harper grinned evilly. "Well, let me think about that," he said, climbing back onto the bed, and kneeling between Tyr's spread legs. He ran his hands along Tyr's thighs, bent down to kiss and taste warm skin, avoiding Tyr's erect flesh.

"Harper," Tyr said, his voice thickening. His hips moved slightly.

Harper stopped. "What?" He said innocently. "I'm thinking about it." Tyr growled, and his wrists came apart. "Don't move!" Harper said sharply. "Keep your hands where they are."

Tyr looked surprised, and subsided, his smirk returning. "You've done this before," he said, sounding pleased.

Harper returned the smirk with one of his own. "Yeah, just never with an uber," he said, and snickered at the Nietszchean's growl. Harper inched his way up Tyr's body, enjoying the way Tyr moaned and strained against him as he kissed, licked, and rubbed. "Oh yeah, the Harper is _good,_" Harper growled, and grinned when he got the expected chuckle.

"I should never have suggested this," Tyr retorted. "Your overinflated ego obviously needs to be punctured." Then he gasped and arched upwards as Harper's teeth closed sharply on a nipple. Harper licked the nipple he'd just bitten, and flashed a wicked grin up at Tyr before continuing along his path. He nibbled along Tyr's collar bone, and nuzzled the soft place just under the ear.

Tyr moaned, and his arms trembled as he fought to keep them in position. His hips begain to thrust against Harper's, and it was Harper's turn to moan. It felt so good, a sweet thrill that was like riding a wave, or a hoverboard, the same sense of control, the same feeling of excitement and pleasure shuddering through him. He could feel the wetness of pre-come, his and Tyr's, so he pulled back, not wanting to end this too quickly, and laughed at Tyr's wordless protest.

"Don't move!" Harper said, when he saw Tyr's hands move again, and felt a thrill of satisfaction when Tyr froze, eyes wide and startled. Like he hadn't expected to respond so instantly to Harper's voice. Harper fumbled around for the lube, and found it under the rumpled covers. He uncapped it, slicked two fingers down, and slid them slowly into Tyr, who moaned again, low in his throat, and thrust down, his legs lifting up slightly. Harper crooked his fingers, hitting the sweet spot, and twisting a little. Muscles flexed, and Tyr made a sound that was very nearly a whimper as Harper crooked and twisted again.

"Harper..._please_..." Tyr's voice was shaking, his eyes wide and dark with lust.

"Please what?" Harper asked breathlessly, an evil, evil grin on his face. "What do you want?"

"Fuck me!" Tyr snarled, frustrated, aching with need. His entire body was shaking with the effort to not move his arms.

Still. No bonds at all holding him down, just his own determination keeping his wrists crossed above his head. Because Harper wanted him to. The thought was so incredible, so hot, that he almost came right then. Quickly Harper took some more lube, slicked his cock, positioned himself, and slammed inside. Tyr arched, meeting Harper's thrust with one of his own, groaning in satisfaction as Harper started to pound into him.

Tyr met him at each stroke, dark eyes intent and focussed totally on him, like Harper was the only person the whole universe, and his arms *still* crossed at the wrists above his head. "Harper..." Sweet groan from Tyr, like a carress, and Harper was coming, his whole body arching as he let out a whoop, spending himself in shuddering waves.

He pulled out, and lay along side Tyr, his hand sliding down sweat slick flesh, to Tyr's cock. He pressed close to Tyr, kissing him on the mouth as his hand wrapped around Tyr's flesh and began to stroke. Tyr kissed him back, sweetly, as his hips began to move again. A few more strokes, and Tyr was coming with a low cry that wasn't--quite--a shout. His arms lowered slowly, and wrapped themselves around Harper. "Hey, did I tell you you could put 'em down?" Harper teased, even as he snuggled closer, resting his head against Tyr's shoulder.

Tyr was smirking. Harper could _feel_ it. "You can punish me later." A pause. "After I punish you."

"Hey, what'd I ever do to you?"

"I _told_ you to bind me, and you didn't. You obviously need to be taught a lesson."


	3. List

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted 08-02-2006 in my LJ

**_He's got 'em on the list--he's got 'em on the list; And they'll none of 'em be missed--they'll none of 'em be miss'd!_\-- They'll None of Them Be Missed, The Mikado**

* * *

Harper negotiated catenaries of data. Numbers, files, and codes streamed by in orderly patterns. "This section looks clean, Rom-doll," he said. "Just like the last sixty or so. I'm gonna scan the personal databases, and crew accounts." Which only accounted for a little less than five percent of the Andromeda's capacity, but you never knew what little hiccup or burp you might find behind someone's personal firewall. Harper liked to do a thorough job, though he was careful never to do more than scan for bugs, "unauthorized programming," hacking, and viruses.

Dylan's was clean, so was Trance's. Beka's database was stuffed full of odds and ends. Stock portfolios under two different names, neither of them hers, flight sims, music, holonovels. Harper left his usual message about buying stock on something ridiculous--this time, Brooklyn Bridge Industries--then checked his own database, before checking Tyr's.

And there was a burp. He might never have noticed it, might have passed over it a dozen times already, depending on how old it was, if not for the file. A file that didn't belong--or shouldn't belong--in the subdirectory he'd found it in. The file's name, which had caught his eye, was "themikado".

It rang a bell. A very small, very distant bell, but it rang. Harper neatly circumvented the security lock on the file, and opened it--and for several moments was breathless with shock.

Names. Pictures. Short biographies in some cases and last reported whereabouts. People he'd known from Earth. Friends, family, enemies, the usual suspects. Looking at the file was like getting liquid nitrogen injected directly into his spine. Harper realized his hands were shaking.

"Harper? Are you all right?" Rommie asked, popping into view.

"Yeah, fine," Harper said hastily. He made a copy of the file, and tucked it back into its subdirectory.

"You don't look fine." Virtual Rommie bent a more or less motherly frown at Harper. "And you were just in Tyr's database, which doesn't exactly fill me with confidence."

"It's private, Rommie," Harper said. "It has nothing to do with you or Dylan." It had everything to do with him and Tyr.

He wanted to know how. He wanted to know why, and his brain flew along a thousand tangents, a thousand possible reasons, most of them negative. Hostages or blackmail were the first to spring to mind, however much he cared about Tyr. However, neither of the first two possible reasons made sense in the context of his and Tyr's relationship.

"Harper." Rommie's virtual avatar gave him a stern frown--the ship inadvertently made sisterly--and reached out for the file, which Harper held out of reach (metaphorically).

"Rommie, I mean it. Back off, and leave me alone." Rommie stared at him, as surprised at Harper's tone as Harper was himself. "Please, let me handle this, it really is private."

She gave him a long, speculative look. "All right Harper. I'll keep this to myself. For now."

Harper smiled. "Thanks babe."

* * *

Tyr's list had been built over the course of months, from offhand comments and the occasional wistful speculation. It was cross-referenced with information gathered from contacts, public communication forums and a thousand other sources. He had to be careful, because a Nietszchean looking for humans from a slave world normally spelled "slaver," and in certain quarters that could get him killed in an alley somewhere, which wouldn't do either himself or Harper any good.

It was harder to find the Dragans and Niets on the list--Harper never knew most of them as anything other than sneering faces and tall shapes in jack boots, wielding shock sticks. And the names he did know might have been aliases or nick names. Other methods would be required to gain some measure of--closure. A line that might have come from a book he'd read once came to him "...started with the generals, and worked their way down." Impractical at this point in time, certainly.

Tyr waited for Harper on the observation deck. He pretended to watch the universe go by, and that he couldn't hear Harper coming up behind him. He had nothing to hide--except this one thing, and perhaps another--but he would not explain himself, unless the right questions were asked.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Harper asked, moving over to sit near where Tyr was standing. He was holding a flexi in his hand--Probably with a downloaded copy of the list. Harper looked more curious than wary or angry, and Tyr counted that in his favor.

Tyr considered his potential responses, and chose the simplest. "I was unsure of what your response would be."

"What, you thought I'd think you were putting together a hit list?" Harper asked. He waved the flexi. "Let me just say that finding something like this did *not* make my day."

"I didn't want to make you uncomfortable, or disappoint you if my leads went nowhere," Tyr said. There was so much he wanted to say then, but he held it in. "It seemed simpler to let myself be caught than to confess." Which was a confession of another sort.

Harper gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Right. Message received. 'I Tyr Anasazi am up to something.'" Harper set the flexi down and stood up, putting himself toe to toe with Tyr. He had to stand on his toes to do it, but he wrapped his hand around the braids at the back of Tyr's neck and tugged down, Tyr followed, bending so that they were nose to nose. Harper kissed him hard and angry-sweet, almost wrapping himself around Tyr, Tyr supporting Harper in return. "Message from me to you. Do not fuck with the ship. Do not fuck with my head," Harper muttered between kisses.

"My goals still run parallel to the Captain's," Tyr said. "I would tell you if they diverged." It was the first promise he'd made. He would tell Harper, and hope that Harper's goals would run along side his. It was the first promise he'd made, a silent promise--and this was the first time he'd spoken it aloud.

Harper snorted in disbelief, and tilted his head back. "Right. Five minutes after everyone's dead, I bet."

Tyr knew what to say to this. "You wound me; five minutes before--for you."

* * *

There was constant contact between them from the observatory to the hall to their room. They kissed and touched and pushed each other into the bulkheads. Harper's nerves sizzled and cracked with a messy cocktail of lust and anger, and Tyr's demeanor went from distant to immediate, so within the present moment, Harper barely had time to catch up. Kissed breathless and dizzy, they stumbled into their room, and clothes gave way to heated skin--Tyr was goose-skinned in the cooler air of their room, but he was fever-hot to Harper's mouth and hands.

Neither of them were really sure when exactly their quarters became "their" quarters.

It might have been the seventh or eighth time Harper fell asleep in Tyr's tribute-to-hedonism bed. It might have been the tenth time Tyr woke up to find that Harper had commandeered his console and was working on a pet theory that had come to him during the night, or was re-designing some component to be more efficient. It might have been the slow infiltration of Harper's clothes and personal belongings into the rigidly defined and organized territory of Tyr's living space, and the way those same belongings acquired a sort of contained chaos within the confines of the room.

Boots (once flung in opposite directions) always landed at the foot of the bed, the tool belt when not worn was always at the head (unchanged). Empty cans of Sparky were stacked in pyramids at the end of the console or thrown away (in Harper's own room, they had been an intrinsic part of the landscape). Discarded clothing started out in the middle of the floor but eventually migrated to their appropriate destination (with Tyr's assistance).

They tumbled to the bed and Tyr covered him, held him down and gave him something to struggle against. Tyr kissed him hard and slow and sweet, like every kiss was the last kiss in the world and it needed to be perfect. Harper opened to it, to Tyr--and Tyr gave way, eyes dark and hungry. Their positions reversed as control was given and returned--and Harper didn't wonder if Tyr realized how hot that was, because he *knew* that Tyr knew.

Their cocks slid and bumped together, and Tyr growled or groaned, arching up beneath Harper. Harper leaned in to kiss him, moaning himself when Tyr's hands stroked and kneaded the small of his back and ass. "Tyr--can I?" Harper asked, breathless still, and needy. He murmured it in Tyr's ear, pressed it into Tyr's skin.

Tyr shuddered beneath him, eyes wide and dark. "Yes, _please_." Like it was being dragged out of him.

Harper fumbled after the lubricant, hastily smearing it on his fingers as Tyr spread his legs and cocked his hips. Harper took his time, stretching Tyr slowly and carefully a finger at a time while Tyr growled helpless, frustrated threats. By the time Harper replaced fingers with cock, Tyr was incoherent.

It was a long fast slide after that. Tyr came first, followed by Harper who collapsed on top of him. They lay like that for some time, Harper snuggling into Tyr's warmth.

"What about your list?" Harper asked sleepily.

"My list?" Tyr asked. Sleepy, and also confused. Sleepy and confused sounded good on Tyr. Most things sounded good on Tyr.

"Yeah," Harper said. "Your list. Your people." Tyr went still at that. More still.

Harper wondered if he'd made a mistake--but after a long pause Tyr said, "There is such a list. In some respects it is shorter and in others, longer."

"I want to help."

"I'd like you to."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "...started with the generals and worked their way down," is a slight paraphrase of a line in Steven Brust's _Jhereg_.


End file.
